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But, the same drugs used to treat more common cancers could also be used for chordoma patients, according to researchers from the Wellcome Trust, University College London Cancer Institute and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust.

Scientists gained a better understanding of the biology surrounding the rare cancer, and the results for new treatment options were “promising”, they said.

For lung and breast cancer treatments, doctors use drugs to stop the body making an enzyme, known as PI3K. The enzyme helps the cancer to develop.

The same PI3K-inhibitors could be used to treat chordoma patients, they claimed.

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The rare bone cancer is difficult to treat

The Executive Director of the US’s Chordoma Foundation charity, Josh Sommer, said: “These findings represent a major step forward in understanding the underlying causes of chordoma, and provide hope that better treatments may soon be available for some patients.”

Another scientist working on the study, Dr Sam Behjati form the Wellcome Trust, added: “By sequencing the tumours’ DNA, we get a much clearer view of the genetic changes that drive chordoma.

“We have shown that a particular group of chordoma patients could be treated with PI3K inhibitors, based on their mutations.

“This would have been missed had we not done genomic sequencing of their tumours.”